Milestone
A funny thing happened last weekend. With some encouragement from my kid, I finally got around to watching Michael Mann’s 1995 crime flick Heat. And then I wrote about it. And then my website’s odometer clicked over.
My musings on Heat resulted in my 3,000th published review. I don’t know about you, but that seems like a lot of reviews to me. Specifically, that tally includes my reaction to every feature film, documentary and short film I have viewed since May 1995 plus (for reasons too complicated to go into right now) all of the films I saw at the 1987 Seattle International Film Festival. It includes movies that have been seen by hundreds of millions of people around the planet as well as movies that have only been seen by a roomful of people—or less. It includes a movie that earned $2.9 billion (Avatar). It also includes movies like the one I saw immediately after Heat, which cost an estimated $30,000—not to mention ones that cost even less. The really cool horror movie I saw a couple of weeks ago cost an estimated $2,000.
What impresses me about the number 3,000, however, is not what an achievement (dysfunctional obsession?) it represents but the realization of the huge number of movies that it does not include. There are a heck of a lot of movies out there—so many that no one could see all of them. No one can even say how many movies there are, and of course, it depends on how your define the term. To my surprise, according to the internet, there are less than half a million movies that have played in cinemas, but needless to say, that is a fraction of all films that have gone straight to video or otherwise never gotten a cinematic release.
Anyway, I’ve never deluded myself that I would ever see all or most of the movies out there. I’ve resigned myself to regularly getting disappointed looks when people ask me about this movie or that movie which I’ve never seen—although I have to say I very rarely get asked about movies that I’ve never have heard of.
I can tell you, a lot of things have certainly changed in the internet-movie-reviewing business in the past three decades. In the mid-1990s there weren’t nearly as many people online, but someone like me had no trouble getting their attention. Before Google came along, you couldn’t just go searching for movie reviews, but there was a word of mouth of sorts and people managed to find me. At one time I’m pretty sure I could count movie review web pages on two hands.
Then things exploded. Every traditional publisher as well as non-traditional ones started putting up their own sites. Cinephiles were spoiled by being able to read any newspaper’s or magazine’s reviews—often for free. Blogs, as they came to be called, like mine also proliferated. Today even people who don’t have websites post reviews online. Sites like the Internet Movie Database probably publish more reviews than any of the others, and those are largely written by individuals for free.
Are blogs like this one even necessary anymore? Here’s my answer to that question. Who cares? Luckily, I didn’t start this as a business venture. At least not a serious one. If I had planned to make a living off my film writing, I would have starved a long time ago. Honestly, I do it for myself—not you. But if you read this site and enjoy it, I’m very happy about that, and you’re welcome. It’s my gift to you since none of what you spend to read my words (computer costs, internet access, electricity) goes to me. (If you want to read any of my novels, on the other hand, that will cost you, but I will thank you even more.)
In the end I have always kept this site going for nothing really more than love of film. You won’t always find the latest releases covered in a timely manner, if at all, but you will get my take on it all, which you may or may not find interesting. It’s an honor to think that anyone may check in regularly because they’re entertained or informed or they get a take they can relate to.
Over time this site has also found another purpose. Somehow I became a destination for aspiring filmmakers, including young students but sometimes older folks, looking for exposure, feedback and clippings for their c.v. and I’ve gotten invitations to see their films and write about them. And in a way, some of those movies are more interesting than the latest remake or sequel from Hollywood. It also has the satisfying sense of being part of a relative small online community again. A few years ago I came across an online list someone put together of sites that would consider reviewing unknown, unreleased movies and was intrigued to find myself listed. Even more satisfying from a purely egoistic point of view, though, was what a short list it was. In this huge commercialized stratified globalized internet world, I had found a niche.
Of course, this whole movie-reviewing thing has gone on long enough that it’s fair to ask, how much longer can it go on? Who knows? All I know is that at this point I’m functionally incapable of watching a movie and not writing something about it. I don’t know what it would be like to stop, and I find I’m happier if I don’t ponder the question.
In the meantime there are still films to watch. As of today my odometer is already up to 3,002.
-S.L., 20 April 2024
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